Stéphane Vial, founder

Founder and coordinator

Stéphane Vial is the founder and coordinator of Mentallys, which he initially launched as a university research project in 2019, in Montreal. He is responsible for the vision, product strategy and operations management.

Passionate about the digital revolution and interaction design, Stéphane had the idea of creating a digital platform for mental health in 2011, when he was working in Paris as a web designer.

Over time, the idea grew into a research-innovation project within the Diament Chair in Design for e-Mental Health, created before the pandemic at the Université du Québec à Montréal, where Stéphane is a Full Professor in Design, in collaboration with the Research Centre of the Institut universitaire en santé mentale de Montréal.

Before coming to UQAM, Stéphane was an Associate Professor in Design at the Université de Nîmes, where he co-founded the PROJEKT lab, the first accredited design research center in France, and the research journal Sciences du Design.

Before that, Stéphane was a college professor in philosophy (his first job) at the École Boulle, a famous Paris art and design school, and a web designer with his own studio in Paris, where he managed over 30 web projects in the cultural, public and non-profit sectors.

In Paris, Stéphane also worked as a licensed clinical psychologist, first as a volunteer in a public psychiatric service (Asm13), then as a psychologist in a renal transplant and intensive care unit at Hôpital Tenon.

Born in France, near Lyon, Stéphane holds a doctorate in philosophy (Université Paris Descartes). He holds a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in clinical psychology from the Université Paris 7 Denis Diderot, as well as a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in philosophy from the Université Jean Moulin Lyon 3. He has published more than six books.

Stéphane was a mental health caregiver for several years, which led him to personally experience many care services in Quebec and France. He is also interested in financial stress, and works on the side as a financial security advisor.

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